I've been looking these books up on Amazon... any ideas as to why Tess of the D'Urbervilles is frequently purchased with the Fifty Shades trilogy? o.O

While I have not personally read the Fifty Shades trilogy, I know enough people that have. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is mentioned in the first book (at least from what I have been told). The main character is writing and essay about it, and she receives a first edition of the book as a gift from ChristianGrey.

"Don't try to be modern, it's the most old-fashioned thing there is," - Attilio, The Tiger and the Snow

I love to recommend Jasper Fford to anyone who likes to read. The Thursday Next novels are a lot of fun- very clever and full of literary references. They're sort of a mix of fantasy, science fiction and mystery. He's also written a book called Shades of Greythat is, I think, his best work. It has an unfortunate name association, however and I think that may have negatively affected it's popularity. It's more purely science fiction/dystopian future, but it's really warm and funny and sweet.

ChristopherMoore is also brilliant for summer reading. My favorites are Lamb and Fluke both of which are funny and touching, genre-defying one-offs.

Although I kind of hated her last book, Barbara Kingsolver is usually brilliant. For a long time Animal Dreams was my favorite book. I also love her non-fiction collections of essays.

I've also been getting into narrative non-fiction lately. If you like historical fiction, you might like ErikLarson. I've only read Devil in the White City, (which is brilliant) but I've heard nothing but good things about In the Garden of Beasts. I also recently read Methland by Nick Reding, which I found heartbreaking and stunning. Also- Sarah Vowell!! My favorites are Assassination Vacation and Take the Canolli.

I have to second, or third the suggestion of The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. It's an amazing book. I really liked her other two books, Man Walks into a Room and The Great House but they aren't as universally loved. She's married to JonathonSaffran Foer, who is also brilliant. If you haven't read Everythng is Illuminated or Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, that should be your first move this summer.

@Redwoodfey, have you read the Moribito series by Nahoko Uehashi? They're technically YA, but I enjoyed the first one. I think they're considered high fantasy. They take place in a fantastic medieval Japan. The heroine is a 30 something body guard for hire.

I was really into fantasy when I was in high school and my favorites were the Belgariad books by David Eddings. It's typical high fantasy, but I thought they were clever and fun. The first one is called The Pawn of the Prophecy.

Also- For those of you who live in the US, I recommend checking to see if your library subscribes to Novelist. It's a database that offers book reviews, recommendations and read-alikes written and curated by librarians. I find it really useful for making book suggestions for my patrons. There's Also bookbrowse.com. To get the full service, you or your library has to subscribe, but they do offer a free limited service for individuals. I find the read-alike lists in both Novelist and Bookbrowse to be really helpful and kind of fun to look through and I think they're a little more navitigable than goodreads (and not owned by Amazon). I also quite like librarything.com for browsing other people's bookshelves.